No matter what service or product you provide, you need to provide high-value information on your site or blog. For example, if your business provides insurance services, it’s not a bad idea to publish useful information from government departments, such as news and updates on statistical research, insurance tips, etc.
The problem with providing this kind of information, however, is that it involves a lot of time and expertise. You have to filter through, research, and organize a lot of information, check your facts, write and edit content (or hire someone to do this for you), and then make sure that this information is continually kept up-to-date. As you can imagine, this is not only a huge amount of work but most of the information you are dealing with is entirely beyond your control.
Fortunately, there is an easier way to keep your site readers up-to-date with the latest information.
It’s called RSS …
(RSS is the easiest way to provide your site readers with up-to-date information)
The Ultimate Guide To WordPress RSS
Basic Information About RSS
- RSS is an acronym for RDF Site Summary, or, as is more commonly referred, Really Simple Syndication. It it is also called a “feed” or “newsfeed”.
- After a user subscribes to an RSS feed, they no longer have to manually check the website for updated content. Instead, their web browser constantly monitors the content and keeps feed subscribers automatically updated.
- Feeds are often used to publish frequently updated information, such as new blog entries, news, videos, etc., to which any user can then subscribe.
- You can read RSS feeds with a web-based, desktop-based, and even mobile-based software program called a feedreader, or aggregator. Feedreaders can be used to access content on all kinds of topics and syndicate this content to online properties.
- Feeds can be made available in different formats and read by different aggregators. Some of these include RSS feeds, Atom feeds and RDF (RDF = Resource Description Framework) feeds. All of these formats, however, use a standard XML file format to ensure that feeds are compatible with different devices and programs.
- Many sites and software applications also allow you to combine several RSS feeds to receive news and updates from multiple sources.
This detailed article explains where to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to syndicate your content online using RSS, and how to display content from other websites on your site via RSS.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds
Content syndication is a powerful method used for sharing content online. RSS Feeds provide web users with a way to stay up-to-date with the latest information published on different websites and blogs.
First, let’s look at syndication.
Many online newspapers rely heavily on syndication to publish newsworthy content from other news agencies all around the world.
Syndication allows news agencies to deliver readers up-to-the-minute news headlines and the most recent newsworthy stories from around the globe without actually having to employ and set up more reporting agencies all around the world …
(Digital news publishers and many highly-visited online media publications rely heavily on content syndication to publish news and stories from news sources all around the globe.)
Syndication is a legitimate method of sharing content with other sites. Global media publications syndicate their content using news feeds …
(Syndication is a legitimate way of sharing newsworthy content)
Most websites actually would like you to share their content. Syndicating content not only allows information of great value to be shared, but it also sends visitors back to the site that published the original content being syndicated. This can be an effective way to generate web traffic.
Major content sites will contain an RSS feed section (look for links in their navigation section that say ”RSS”, “Syndication”, or “Newsfeeds” in them, or just search for “name of site/keyword + rss” – e.g. “nytimes rss”, “daily telegraph rss”, “sydney morning herald rss”, etc.) …
(Many digital publishers have a feed section. Image Source: Sydney Morning Herald )
Clicking on a site’s RSS links section will bring up a list of different RSS feeds of the site …
(RSS feeds section. Image: nytimes.com RSS feeds)
gives you access to content from different areas of the website (e.g. business news, arts news, jobs, etc.)
Feed sections can also include feed subdirectories …
(A feed list can also include feed subcategories. Source: LA Times RSS)
Note: A feed is simply a URL. All you need to do to use a feed is to copy the URL and paste it into a program that can translate the feed into something readable. We’ll cover this further below.
Content Syndication – Benefits
Adding content from someone else’s site on your website has some obvious benefits. It not only gives additional exposure online to someone else’s content, it also helps you by freeing you up from having to create that content …
(The Benefits Of Syndicating Content)
While adding a feed from another site is a great way to add content to your site that you don’t have to create, it’s worth keeping in mind that there are benefits in getting other websites to syndicate YOUR content.
When other websites and blogs syndicate your feed, you have the opportunity to get more exposure online and drive more web traffic …
(It’s worth trying to get other online users to syndicate your RSS feed … it will help to increase your traffic!)
WordPress Feed
WordPress automatically publishes a feed of all your posts, allowing other online users to easily syndicate your content on their sites.
Depending on your WordPress theme, there are a few ways to access your RSS feed:
1) If your theme allows the Meta widget to be displayed in a standard or custom menu, scroll down to the Meta section and click on Entries RSS …
(WordPress Meta section – Accessing your RSS feed)
2) You can also find built-in links or buttons on certain WordPress themes that allow your visitors to copy your RSS feed.
In the screenshot below, for example, a visitor can simply copy the feed URL by clicking on on the Subscribe to RSS link …
(Copy feed URLs to your clipboard from “subscribe” buttons)
3) On some websites and again, depending on your WordPress theme, you can find the RSS feed displayed in a Share, Link To Us, or Keep In Touch toolbar section …
(Look for an RSS button in a a Link To Us, Share, or Follow Us slide-out, fixed, or floating toolbar)
4) You can also view your WordPress feed by typing your site’s URL into a browser and adding “/feed” after the URL, e.g.:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed (if your WordPress installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Using any of the above methods will bring up a page containing your RSS feed …
(Feed entries displayed using a Firefox web browser)
Note that your feed page will display differently depending on the browser you use …
(Feed items as seen using Google Chrome)
Specify Number Of Items To Display On Your RSS Feed
You can specify how many items you want to show in your RSS Feed page, by going to your Reading Settings section and typing the number of items to show in the “Syndication feeds show the most recent” field …
(Reading Settings – Syndication feeds)
Your feed page will display the number of items you have specified section …
(Your feed will display as many recent items you have specified in the WP Reading Settings section)
Display Full Text Or Summary Of Posts In Your RSS Feed
The other setting in your Reading Settings section that affects your RSS feed is whether to display posts as full text, or just as a summary …
(Reading Settings – Show ‘Full Text’ or ‘Summary’ for each article in your feed)
Post Excerpts can also affect how the content in your feed displays …
(Post excerpts affect how your feeds display)
We have written a detailed tutorial about Post excerpts here:
View The Content Of Your RSS Feeds
As mentioned earlier, all you need to do to view a feed’s content is to copy the feed’s URL and paste it into a feedreader, i.e. an application that can translate feeds into readable content for humans.
Let’s take a look at how this works.
First, find a website or blog and look for their RSS feed button …
(Look for an RSS feed section. Image source: http://www.yourcoffeeguru.com)
Next, copy the feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the feed URL to your clipboard)
If you want, you can check the feed content by pasting the feed URL into a feed reader …
(Paste the URL of your feed into a feedreader to view the feed content. Image: Feedreader.com)
Like feedreaders, WordPress has the ability to process RSS/XML feeds and convert these into human-readable content.
How To Add A Feed To Your WordPress Site
In the example below, we are going to add content from other site’s RSS feeds to yours.
Adding Feeds To Your Sidebar
As mentioned earlier, no matter what industry your business is a part of, you can add to your site the latest news and updates from an industry-related government department or authoritative site in your industry by simply importing their RSS feed. You can easily display a range of information on your WordPress site such as news, Facebook updates, or content from thousands of sites using the WordPress RSS widget.
Let’s add RSS content to the WordPress sidebar …
(Add content from an RSS feed to your sidebar)
First, Go to a website that publishes content that you want to display on your site and copy its RSS feed URL to your clipboard …
(Copy the URL of your feed)
Next, paste the feed into a new RSS widget …
(Widgets Panel – RSS Widget)
To learn more about using sidebar widgets, go here:
Refresh your browser. The content from the RSS feed will now display on your sidebar …
(RSS Widget)
Add Your WordPress RSS Feed To Search Consoles
You can add your WordPress RSS feed to Google and Bing’s search consoles. This will help them index your content faster.
(WordPress RSS feed added to Google Search Console)
Adding your site’s RSS feed to search consoles is simple, fast, easy, and requires no technical skills. For a step-by-step tutorial, go here:
How To Add Feeds To Your WordPress Posts
Can you add content from RSS feeds to WordPress posts? You sure can!
You can easily do this using plugins. Just search inside the Plugins admin section for RSS, RSS feed to post, etc.
(WordPress RSS plugins)
Note: These plugins typically require configuration – visit the plugin sites for setup instructions, or contact us for help configuring plugins.
Here are some WordPress plugins that allow you to curate and add content from RSS feeds to your posts and pages:
WPeMatico
(WPeMatico)
WPeMatico is an autoblogging plugin that allows you to publish posts automatically from selected RSS/Atom feeds.
You can manage all of your imported feeds and organize them according to campaigns.
For more details, go here:
WP RSS Aggregator
(WP RSS Aggregator Plugin For WordPress)
WP RSS Aggregator is an RSS feed importer and auto blogging WordPress plugin with a number of premium add-ons for extended functionality.
For example, the Feed to Post add-on for the WP RSS Aggregator plugin allows you to add content to your site automatically by importing RSS feeds directly into your WP posts.
For more details, go here:
RSS Post Importer
(RSS Post Importer Plugin)
The RSS Post Importer plugin can be used to syndicate, import, curate, merge and display full-text feeds on your WordPress site.
The plugin fetches an RSS feed and publishes the full content of every item in the feed as a standalone post.
For more details, go here:
Powr RSS Feed
(Powr RSS Feed WordPress Plugin)
POWr RSS Feed allows you to combine content from various content using RSS feeds.
The POWr RSS Feed plugin also lets you display images, videos, and article content, adjust feed priority, use custom colors, fonts, borders, and more. It is also mobile responsive and supports text in any language.
The premium plugin version contains a number of additional features, such as the ability to display different feeds, accept or reject posts in your feed, and more.
For more details, go here:
WP Pipes
(WP Pipes WP Plugin)
WP Pipes is a powerful data migration plugin that lets you create curate content from RSS feeds, Google News, and other sources.
This plugin provides loads of powerful features like CSV importing for posts/WooCommerce, RSS feed creator, autoblogging, auto post to LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook, export your posts as iTunes podcasts, create Google XML sitemaps, and more!
For more details, go here:
FeedWordPress
(FeedWordPress Plugin For WordPress)
FeedWordPress provides flexible syndication for WordPress.
As stated in the FeedWordPress site …
FeedWordPress is an open-source Atom/RSS aggregator for the WordPress blog publishing platform. You set up feeds that you choose, and FeedWordPress syndicates posts from those sources into your WordPress posts table, where they can be displayed by your WordPress templates like any other post — but with additional meta-data, so that your templates can properly attribute the post to the source it came from.
FeedWordPress can be used to create aggregator sites, or display all of your online activity (e.g. from your blog, LinkedIn, Flickr, or other online services, in one place.
For more details, go here:
Autoblog
(Autoblog Plugin For WordPress)
Autoblog is an easy-to-use plugin that can be set-up in minutes, with no coding required and no complicated instructions. Simply copy and paste in your feed URL, give it a name of your choosing (for admin purposes) and select the blog to post content to.
For more details, go here:
RSS Includes Pages
(RSS Includes Pages and Custom Post Types)
By default, WordPress only posts posts in your RSS feed. Install the RSS Includes Pages plugin if you want to include pages in your WordPress RSS feed and not just posts.
For more details, go here:
WordPress RSS Feeds – Useful Tips
Tip #1 – Comment RSS Feeds
WordPress displays RSS feeds of comments posted on your site in addition to making RSS feeds of your latest posts available to online users.
You can access these comments by clicking on Comments RSS in your ‘Meta’ widget area …
(Comments Feed)
All the comments posted on your site by visitors and users can be seen in your Comments RSS page …
(RSS comments feed entries displayed with Firefox)
Like post entries, your comments feed page will display differently depending on the browser you are using …
(Comments feed entries seen on Google Chrome web browser)
Again, you can check the feed content by pasting the URL of the feed into an online feedreader …
(Paste your comments feed URL into a feed reader to view the content. Image Source: http://feedreader.com/online)
Note: If the Meta section is not displaying on your theme, you can view the Comments RSS section of your site by opening up a browser and typing in the following URL:
- http://www.yourdomain.com/comments/feed
- http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/comments/feed (if your WP site installation is in a subdomain, e.g. “blog”)
Tip #2 – Creating RSS Feeds For Specific Items
Being able to select an RSS feed for a specific post can be useful. For example, you may want to add feeds from specific posts to RSS directories, or you may have created a valuable resource that other online users will want to syndicate.
The formula for making an RSS feed for a specific post item is shown below:
(Specific Post Feed)
To create the above feed, copy the URL of your post, and append “/feed/?withoutcomments=1” to the end.
(Single Post Feed)
Note: By default, if you only add “/feed” to the end of your post, WordPress will return the comments made on your post, not the content of the post itself.
Tip #3 – Post Category Feeds
Some your site visitors may only want to syndicate content from one or two post categories. They may not want to subscribe to all of your site’s content.
If you publish content under multiple categories, you can easily provide a separate RSS feed for each different category.
Just use the format shown below:
(Format for WordPress post categories RSS feed)
Copy the category URL to your clipboard …
(Select and copy your category link address …)
And add “feed” to the end of it …
(WordPress post categories RSS feed format)
Your feed will now only display content posted under this category …
(Category feed)
The WordPress Codex also provides different ways to create feeds not just for post categories, but also feeds for tags, authors, search, etc.
For this example, let’s create a feed for a specific post category using the format shown below:
(Post Category feed format. Source: WordPress Codex)
Here is the feed format WordPress recommends using. In this example, the post category ID is ’42’. We’ll need to replace the post category ID and the domain name …
(WordPress post category feed format)
To find the post category ID, go to Posts > Categories …
(Posts > Categories menu)
Locate the post category you want and hover your mouse over the title to reveal its unique ID …
(Post Category ID)
In our example, the post category ID is ’29’ and the post category feed format we need to use for this specific category with our domain name looks like this …
(Post category feed format with domain name and ID)
Copy and paste the feed into your browser and hit enter …
(Paste the feed into your browser)
This will display the feed for that specific category …
(RSS feed of a specific post category)
Note that in this example, WordPress automatically converted the feed format we pasted into the browser into the category feed we had used in the previous section of this tutorial …
(Post category feed format)
Here is the feed format again …
(Post category feed)
In this case, the simplest way to create additional feeds for specific categories is to simply change the post category slug …
(Change the post category slug to create a new category specific feed)
Paste the edited feed into your web browser and hit enter to display the content for that specific category’s feed …
(Post category feed content)
Now that you have a method for creating feeds for specific post categories (or tags, authors, etc.), you can even create a directory or list of individual feeds for visitors.
Tip #4 – Publish A List Of Feeds On Your Site
You can set up your own page of RSS feeds on your site that allows readers to subscribe to specific content …
(Publish Your Own Feeds List)
You can link a button to the URL of your feed and then create a table or a list of all feeds on a new page …
(RSS button. Source: http://www.public-domain-photos.com/free-cliparts/computer/other/rss_button_roman_bertle_01-2522.htm)
We have written a detailed tutorial on creating tables in WordPress pages and posts here:
RSS – Notes
RSS feeds can be customized in various different ways, such as adding images and videos to feeds, ads, etc. Some of these customizations require code editing skills.
WordPress allows a number of RSS feed configurations that do not require code editing skills. For example, here are some of the kinds of feed types you can create …
(Different Feed Formats You Can Create Using WordPress RSS)
For your convenience, here are the different feed types, descriptions, and feed examples listed in the image above:
- Feed Type: All Posts
- Description: Content feed – RSS feed that contains your latest entries
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/
- Feed Type: All Comments
- Description: Comments feed – Displays the latest comments posted on your website
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/comments/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts
- Description: RSS feed containing a specific post entry
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/post-title/feed/
- Feed Type: Individual Posts Comments
- Description: Contains the latest comments made on a post
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/title-of-your-blog-post/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Day – Contains latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2014/01/12/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Month – Contains the latest post entries in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2011/05/feed/
- Feed Type: Archives
- Description: Year – RSS feed displaying the latest posts in each archive
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/2012/feed/
- Feed Type: Search Results
- Description: Includes latest posts for a search query
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/search/term/feed/
- Feed Type: Custom Post Type
- Description: RSS feed displaying latest post entries for a custom type (e.g. book)
- Example Feed: http://yourdomain.com/feed/?post_type=book
One more thing …
It’s a good idea to promote your RSS feed. Make sure you place a ’subscribe to RSS’ links in a visible location …
(Remember to promote your feeds!)
Finally, keep in mind that other sites will only syndicate your content if you provide great information that informs, engages, and entertains. In other words, you need to provide high-quality information that can add great value to their sites and benefit their users.
(Easily add someone else’s content and get others to syndicate your content with RSS feeds!)
If you need great content ideas subscribe to our FREE content creation course using the form below:
Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our feed 🙂
Additional Resources:
- RSS Graphics – Visit Feedicons or search online (e.g. “free rss icons”, “RSS logo download”, etc.) for sites that contain downloadable RSS icons.
- RSSBoard.org – The RSS Advisory Board provides useful information and resources about RSS.
- Wikipedia.org/RSS – Learn more about the history and benefits of using RSS feeds.
- WordPress Codex – WordPress software documentation and information repository. Go here for more information about WordPress RSS feeds.
Congratulations! Now you know how to find your WordPress RSS feed, how to use your WordPress RSS feed to get your content syndicated online, and how to add someone else’s content to your site via their RSS feed.
Hopefully, this information has given you a better understanding of problems that can affect your web site and how WordPress can help you build a better business online. To learn more about using the WordPress content management software please click on links to visit other great content we have published on this site.
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